{"id":29772,"date":"2013-09-05T14:51:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T10:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=29772"},"modified":"2013-09-05T14:51:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T10:51:14","slug":"arab-nobel-prize-winner-dont-bet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/arab-nobel-prize-winner-dont-bet\/","title":{"rendered":"An Arab Nobel Prize Winner? Don’t Bet On It!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Adonis1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If we can trust the <\/i>Ladbrokes betting odds<\/i><\/a> \u2014 and I\u2019d imagine that we can\u2019t \u2014 it\u2019s more or less the same authors in the running for the Literature prize as last year:<\/i><\/p>\n

As far as Arab writers go, it\u2019s largely the same betting roster as last year: Syrian poet Adonis<\/b> remains near the top of the Ladbrokes odds, tied with Algerian novelist-filmmaker Assia Djebar<\/b> at 14:1.<\/p>\n

Adonis\u2019s spot is deserved, although after he\u2019s gone so many years in contention (at least since 1988), it\u2019s hard to see how the prize will ever go to him.<\/p>\n

Assia Djebar is also mentioned year after year, perhaps since she won the Neustadt in 1996. One would like the Ladbrokes folks some years to pop in Rachid Boudjedra<\/b>, if it\u2019s an Algerian-Francophone-author-in-contention slot. Or, if it\u2019s a female Arab-Francophone slot, then Etel Adnan<\/b> has written in French.<\/p>\n

Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury<\/b> has inexplicably dropped down to 100:1 odds, although perhaps that will change. Following recent books like Yalo<\/i> and As Though She Were Sleeping<\/i>, I\u2019d at least like to see him get a better nod.<\/p>\n

Hanan al-Shaykh<\/b> has been dropped from this year\u2019s list, although Leila Aboulela<\/b> remains inexplicably on. (As does Iranian scholar Azar Nafisi<\/b>, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran <\/i>and not much else.)<\/p>\n

The newest Arab addition is Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan<\/b> \u2014 who comes in at absolutely last on the list, although still 100:1 \u2014 presumably for winning this year\u2019s Griffin Poetry Prize (with translator Fady Joudah)<\/a> and being nominated for the Neustadt<\/a> (by Fady Joudah).<\/p>\n

Keep watch on the odds\u00a0<\/b>on the Ladbrokes site.<\/a>\u00a0So far, it seems they\u2019re picking Haruki Murakami or Joyce Carol Oates to win. I\u2019d hope not on the latter, although M.A. Orthofer seems to give her a good chance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: It’s the same old names who are allegedly in contention for the Nobel Literature Prize according to the oddsmakers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":29775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,80,5],"tags":[17750,17749,17748,17745],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29772"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29777,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772\/revisions\/29777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}